[Closed] Sci-fi book recomeendations

Julian May; Intervention then two trilogies, Galactic Milieu & The Saga of Pliocene Exile

Anything by Neil Asher & Charles Stross,

This post will probably cost me a fortune.

I liked a lot of Heinlein's works - Stranger In A Strange Land, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress in particular

Asimov did the books on which I, Robot was based

Blade Runner was based on Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep by Philip K Dick. Wasn't Total Recall based on one of his short stories?

A big +1 on Neal Asher, particularly the Polity Series

You've continued with the Dune series?

How about cyberpunk stuff?
Snow Crash
Neuromancer

Those two will show you where the ideas for The Matrix came from.

Do androids dream of electric sheep

I'm reluctant to suggest given his views but Ender's game is a very good book.

Space opera: Peter F. Hamilton. Great books, though I should say the ending's are always slightly disappointing. Still worth reading, though don't start expecting shakespearian literature...

How about some Ben Bova - no laughing at the back. Contact by Carl Sagan

Did not realise Dune went on past the three books, brilliant!

Squeezed in 'do androids dream of electric sheep' on a flight to Oz. Pissed the wife off no end as didn't speak to her once. I had a great time though!

Try Enders Game before you ruin it by watching the film

Another suggestion: Dredd. Well worth catching up on his adventures if you used to read him, the stories have grown up a lot, they're no longer children's comics by any stretch of the imagination.

Altered Carbon

Red Mars

Enders Game etc

Dragon's Egg - Robert L Forward

Brave New World, Huxley. One of my favourites but it's the only book of his I've read. Must read more!

Neuromancer

I so badly wanted to like this as it's a seminal work but despite the great idea/concept I thought it was terribly written which really spoilt it for me.

Really? I thought it was amazing, razor sharp noir writing.

Alistair reynolds Revelation Space Series is quite ian m banks esque

Id really reccomend the Dan simmonds Hyperion and Endymion books and his later Ilium/Olympus is excellent

"We can remember it for you wholesale" was the book that Total Recall was based on.

Try Hyperion, it's a classic in ever sense of the word. Maybe also consider "The Star Fraction" by Ken MacLeod. It's a damn fine book and part of a good trilogy (the other two are also worth reading.

To be honest, you could do worse than to go to baen.co and just work through the free library. It's a cruel trick though, you read a couple, then you end up buying the other books of the series from their shop!

Some already mentioned:
Snow Crash
Cryptonomicon
The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress (superb, this)
Red/Green/Blue Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson- fairly hard work but if you can get into the groove of it, nothing better
Star Fraction by Ken Macleod and Vurt by Jeff Noon- I love these 2, I've worn out my copy of Vurt.
Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner (er, I think)
Spares by Michael Marshall Smith

aaaand, if you can stand the terrible sex and criminal lack of an editor, the Night's Dawn series by Peter F Hamilton. Space opera, very silly at times, but his setpieces are superb- it's like a series of boss fights.

Alistair Reynolds
Iain M Banks rip 🙁
Jon Courtney Grimwood
Williams Gibson

Contact by Carl Sagan

The film is pretty good with its single plot twist, the book has a superb double plot twist.

Sagan was taken too soon.

The forever war

Good book.

I'm currently reading "Echo City" by Tim Lebbon. fantasy rather than SF but still damn good. Also by him I've read "Fallen" and "The Heretic Land", both very good

+1 for Julian May's Saga of The Exiles, starting with The Many-Coloured Land

Deathworld - Harry Harrison

I am a massive HH fan and I love all the Stainless Steel Rat books. Bill The Galactic Hero is a real laugh too, quality work poking fun at so much stuff.

I never understand why fantasy is lumped in with SF. Could not be more different.

I collect mid century short story SF books, some I have read just blow my mind.

+1 for altered carbon, enders game & the forever war

Also would recommend:

Robopocalypse by daniel h. wilson
Wool by Hugh howey (part 1 of a trilogy)
Dark eden - cant remember the author but very good

And classics like:

The difference engine
Rendezvous with rama by a.c. clarke
Flowers for algernon

I'm also big Stephen Baxter fan but his books arent for everyone, especially some of the trilogies like phase space which seem to concentrate on the sience rather than caricatures. However books like The Time Ships, which is an imaginative 'what if' sequel to hg wells time machine, and his collaborative stuff with ac clarke are pretty good main stream si-fi.

Two things:
Tiger, Tiger by Alfred Bester

How many have you read from [url= http://www.listchallenges.com/npr-top-100-science-fiction-and-fantasy-books ]this Top 100 SF/F list?[/url]

Ooh, good shout on Altered Carbon. And Flowers For Algernon is just astonishing, some day I might be able to read the ending without crying my eyes out...

robdob - Member

I never understand why fantasy is lumped in with SF. Could not be more different.

Well, it depends. Is Zelazny's Lord of Light fantasy or SF? (even Amber has a big dash of sf in its world-building) Mary Gentle's Ash? How about Anne McCaffrey's Pern series?

Anne McCaffrey. Read most of her Pern books as a teenager. at first it starts as fantasy, but then they discover the ships buried on the southern continent. ships from where I wonder...

I remember the Stainless Steel Rat...

which brings me, in a roundabout way, to Michael Moorcock. Was he really smoking stuff with Hawkwind or what?

from that top 100 I've read 17

30 of that top 100....

Sci-Fi on my Kindle at present:

Exiles
Mongoliad
Divergent
Ender's Game
Pandora: End of days
Hard Duty
First Contact
The Last Praetorian
First Activation
EDEN
The Survivor Chronicles
Dark Space
The City and The Stars
Rendezvous with Rama
Childhood's End
Leviathan Wakes
The Kane Chronicles
Mindstar Rising
Great North Rising
Zoo City
Moxyland
The Lost Stars
Seeds of Earth
Mainspring
Necropath
The Reality Dysfunction

Ringworld by Larry Niven

The Lensman series by EE Doc Smith

More Heinlein books, anything you can get your hands on!!

Another vote for Wool by Hugh Howey. Started reading it this evening and suddenly I'm halfway through it.

Good to see things being recommended here that I haven't heard of (adds to reading list).

Recently enjoyed a couple of Russian gems:

Metro 2033 and a classic sci-fi short, Roadside Picnic.

Now continuing to work my way through Philip K Dick's stuff.

As always lots of good books/author above.
All the Takeshi Kovacs novels by Morgan are great, waiting for the final A Land Fit For Heroes book,....
I like Alastair Reynald Revelation space series
I throughly recommend the China Melville series, not pure sci-fi or fantasy, but great story telling

56 off that list

Glad I'm not the only person who thinks Deathworld is great. Never really understood why it hasn't been a film - would make a great B movie type thing.

Ken MacLeod is another good one to try.

100 off that list. I set myself the target to read them all.

It stopped being fun after a while.

Not seen that list before, and there's lots I wouldn't bother with, but I've read 49.
I would recommend Roger Zelazney's entire works, if you can find them. I've read most of them many times, in particular Roadmarks and Today We Choose Faces. Larry Niven has also written a very large number of novels and short works, many very humorous, and all very much worth reading. All of William Gibson, Charles Stross, and Cory Doctorow's books are almost essential to anyone who likes intelligent fiction, SF or otherwise; Stross's 'Laundry' books are brilliant, James Bond against Cthulhu! And his other books, Halting State/Rule 34, Iron Sunrise, Saturn's Children, are superb, very like Zelazney in his style of writing.
Many others mentioned above are all good reads, like Neil Asher's Polity series, for example.
So many books, so little time... 😐

The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe
The Demon Princes by Jack Vance

Dragons Egg really is excelelnt - read it a few years ago but it's stayed with me. Any other books like it?

Read enders game a few months ago - also very good, tho some of the later ones in the serious are a bit laboured.

Lucifer's Hammer, by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle, a pro SF writer and a NASA scientist team up to make the best current SF novel I've read.

Plus anything else by Niven, his known space stuff is mind-stretching. It would help to read it in order.

100 off that list. I set myself the target to read them all.

It stopped being fun after a while

I'm not surprised, that a not the best top "100 list" I've seen, stuff on there I read a young teenager & have looked at since and found it very poor..

Gunna add David Brin's Uplift series to the my list, & Douglas Adams.. just because...

And a question - who is now writing hard SF in the tradition of Asimov, Clarke and Niven?

Umm Niven ain't quite done yet...

The song of Phaid the gambler - Mick Farren
Citizen of the galaxy - Robert Heinlen

Didn't say he was, but it's yonks since I read any SF, and I'd like to start again. Those three were the best I read. There's a lot of soft fantasy in that top 100 list, even Watership Down. So, once again, who's new writing hard SF?

33 off that list, but I would agree that some of them are not what I would class as pure Sci-Fi.

Has no one mentioned David Drake yet? Hammers Slammers is a pretty good series, as are the Michael Williamson books based around the "Freehold" universe. I'm slightly biased thoguh because I prefer more of the military side of Sci-Fi, although the Iain M Banks Culture books are well up there in my favourites list

Lots of pluses for "The Hyperion Cantos". Just brilliant.

And anything by William Gibson.

And a question - who is now writing hard SF in the tradition of Asimov, Clarke and Niven?

Alastair Reynolds is doing epic space opera stuff, Adam Roberts is doing very conceptual stuff, there's lots about.

That's my next few years reading sorted. I love owning a book so I always buy so let's hope I can find a fair few on eBay.

Thanks all , some brilliant suggestions. I'm going to start at the top and work my way down.

The Helliconia trilogy by Brian Aldiss

I'm reading "Abaddon's Gate" by James SA Corey, which is the third/final book of the 'Expanse' series ("Leviathan Wakes", "Caliban's War" being the others). They've been cracking reads so far!

slowoldgit - Member
And a question - who is now writing hard SF in the tradition of Asimov, Clarke and Niven?

Greg Egan is worth a try, very definitely hard SF rather than space opera. Some of Greg Bear's stuff would be another one to go for.

Oh, and 44 off that list.

I [i]don't like[/i] sci-if as a genre, but can definitely +1 the Forever War trilogy and Enders Game as just massively engaging and memorable reads.

So many good books out there but a few here

For The Win by Cory Doctorow
Any of the Takeshi Kovacs books by Richard Morgan
In a fantasy vein, any of Guy Gavriel Kay's books - Tigana always has me blubbing.

Another vote for Wool and I've just started the second in the trilogy Shift. The third is only out in hardback - c'mon!!

And a question - who is now writing hard SF in the tradition of Asimov, Clarke and Niven?

Try some Stephen Baxter - some of his books are very forward thinking.

Lots of good stuff here. I particularly like Zelazny, McCaffrey (Dragons and the rest) and of the modern writers Iain M Banks and Alastair Reynolds. A couple of authors I've not seen mentioned:
Samuel R Delany - Dahlgren is my favourite, but it's all good
M John Harrison - In Viriconium etc

To those who liked Snowcrash (or tech sci-fi) you should really look up Xenoform by Mike Berry. Seriously impressive stuff and really good writing style which is often a problem with sci-fi. Just reading his second book Macao Station and its another stunner but quite dark.

xenoform just bought. £2 is an easy choice

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It's basically Dark Star crossed with a physics lecture, minus the beachball.

How about some Jack Womack? Give Heathern a go.

Or Jeff Noon? Vurt is very good.

Alfred Bester - The Stars My Destination and The Demolished Man and Philip K Dick - Ubik.

I'd recommend them to anyone!

Some of the Black Library stuff is good, specifically the Gaunt's Ghosts series by Dan Abnett and also the Eisenhorn trilogy (can buy a as a single omnibus).

The Contact Series, Redemption Protocol by Mike Freeman.

37 off the list.....

One fairly recent find is on it tho - the name of the wind, and the wise mans fear by Patrick Rothfuss - some of the best 'epic fantasy' I've read in the last two years. Nether third is due out 2014.

onewheelgood - Member

Lots of good stuff here. I particularly like Zelazny, McCaffrey (Dragons and the rest) and of the modern writers Iain M Banks and Alastair Reynolds. A couple of authors I've not seen mentioned:
Samuel R Delany - Dahlgren is my favourite, but it's all good
M John Harrison - In Viriconium etc

John Scalzi has written some good books

A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter Miller

Oh yeah, definitely that one ^^^ from mikey74.

Wasp by Eric Frank Russell (if you can find it)

If you like the Culture stuff, then Bank's Transitions is worth a punt..

Dragon's Egg was mentioned earlier, great book. Am enjoying for the win currently thanks to this thread. Just finished the two long earth books, first one better than the second, too many ideas not followed through.

Bumping this as I've just finished Jim Butcher's Ghost Story and it was excellent - it's part of the Dresden Files series and I've jumped in with one of the later books but i really enjoyed it, so I'm setting about reading the rest of the series in order

Most of the good stuff has already been mentioned but I think these are well worth a read:

Small World & Little Star Dominic Green. Lesser known, clever and very funny.
Angelmaker - Nick Harkaway. Possibly contemporary Steampunk rather than sci fi, but this guy is the son of John le Carre and the writing is great.

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Got the Dresden books lined up to read & am in the process of finishing the 'Expanse' series by James SA Corey, not exactly indepth stuff but I'd agree with the poster above, a good read. Got a bunch of William Dietz stuff to try too.

Currently I'm also going through Neal stephenson's earlier/lesser-known books (zodiac/interface/the cobweb), but I struggled with Anathem (Cryptonomicon being my favourite) and am scared I'd not enjoy his "Baroque Cycle" books - can anyone comment?

Adam Roberts - New Model Army
Sort of working his way into replacing Iain M Banks in the way conventions are challenged/overturned.
William Gibson's Bridge trilogy and the Bigend trilogy are worth a look.
Brin's Existence and Kil'n People.

Baroque Cycle is a prequel to Cryptonomicon with lots of familiar names that would easily consume you! Go for it. I have Anathem but can't start it for some reason.

I did struggle with Anathem at the start and didn't get into it like I have his other books, I finally clicked eventually but didn't find myself as 'sucked in' as his other stuff (Oh I forgot.. I didn't think the diamond age was that great either).

Cheers will give the Baroque cycle a go then.

Cheers will give the Baroque cycle a go then.

It's very similar in feel to Cryptonomicon, but with the birth of finance instead of codebreaking. And a bit more swashbuckling.